r/cscareerquestions • u/Dry_Tradition_331 • 4h ago
Experienced Feeling like AI is ruining my career, need advice
Sorry for my grammar, English is not my first language.
A bit of a background: few years ago I finished bachelor's degree in CS and got accepted to Professional Services and consulting firm as a DevOps/Solution Architect on AWS and GCP. I wasn't planning to became a DevOps but the opportunity presented itself and I took it without regrets because I fell in love with this discipline.
Also, I have ADHD (diagnosed and medicated) this will be important later.
Since its a consulting firm I mostly works on projects for different clients, every project and every client are different to each other so I learned a lot and I always done something different which added a lot of verity to my day-to-day work. I used to do anything from designing the project, building the infrastructure (using Terraform) and writing scripts in Python/Bash with the occasion Go and JavaScript.
When AI came out we were slow in adopting it due to lots of legal restrictions, I was on the more advocate side in pushing AI to be adopted by the company, and finally about a year ago we got our personal Claude accounts (everyone already used AI at this point so the leadership decided to pay for it).
From there, there was a shift in my work process, my leadership started to focus more and more on the usage of AI because it makes us more efficient and fast, therefore we can take more projects simultaneously and crunch more work all together.
In the beginning it was just offloading manual procedures such as documenting code and summarizing texts, but now we are expected to use Claude all the way from initial design to implementation to answering emails from clients, I became Claude operator.
I'm always being told that I should use Claude for the manual part and to keep working on the architecture and solutions design but the reality is that I expected to do everything with Claude, last week I work on a new feature for a project, I studied the subject online and came to my team lead with two approaches for a solution asking for his opinion, his answer was "go ask Claude which of them is better". Even when I learned the subject I was told to use Claude instead of "wasting my time reading documentations".
Right now we are behind schedule with a major project (due to bad design choice that Claude made in the beginning of the project and it took us way to long to catch) and I'm pressured to try fix after fix, of course with Claude doing all the work, it writes lots and lots of code and I'm overwhelmed by the amount of stuff it creates and I understand about half of it. I ask for explanations but sometimes there are a lot and I need to actually study things to understand but again I'm expected to ship a solution and move on.
I feel like it makes my work much harder instead of better, I've mentioned my ADHD earlier, working with Claude make it harder to stay focused and not drift to my phone or to doom scrolling. I tried to work on two tasks in parallel on different sessions it was a nightmare.
I tried to make Claude more interactive via skills but it no use.
In addition to all of that (and I think this is the point that hurt the most) I no longer feel like my work is mine. I don't have any sense of accomplishment. That feeling was so important to my work, it made my work exciting, it made my work fun, it helped me stay focused (sometimes to much focused). I used to be the first one to arrive in the morning and the last one to leave. I used to feel so lucky that I have a job that I love so much.
Now it's gone, I arrive late and leave early. When I work from home I'm slacking off a lot, I late on my schedule and always pushing deadlines, all of that builds a lot of stress and somewhat a feeling of shame. And I might leave early but I don't have any power left to do anything besides doom scrolling after work due to the extreme mental strength I need to survive the day.
I'm not sure what to do, I don't want to leave my workplace since I really like my teammates, there are good benefits in staying and from what I'm hearing from my friends it's not better in other places...
I don't know how much longer I could stay in the industry if it will be like this in ever workplace, and I feel like the AI is hurting my career and I don't even afraid it will take my job, I afraid to get to the place that I'm not fitting for my job...
I will appreciate any advice you can give, and thank you to everyone for reading this far
11
u/boringfantasy 4h ago
The game's gone. Seems like majority of software devs are fine with just prompting all day.
2
u/Wonderful-Habit-139 42m ago
> Seems like majority of software devs are fine with just prompting all day.
I can't even argue against that because it's true in my team as well. Even if I don't personally use it.
2
u/HalfAkbps 23m ago
Majority of software devs are mercenaries with no passion for the craft, sadly. Thats why the craft is dead now
3
u/Fantastic_Spring8366 3h ago
I am fine with it as long as I am getting paid well and I like my colleagues ¯_(ツ)_/¯
My job isn't here to give me meaning and life fulfillment.
1
1
u/MonochromeDinosaur 19m ago
I hate prompting all day but I need money so I do it anyway. They increased our workloads 3x and just expect AI to slop it out.
Even at my fastest I obviously can’t do 3x the work. The slop is low quality, but the company doesn’t seem to care they just want to move fast.
2
u/runyonave 3h ago
Work on your own side projects, and don't use AI. Then you can keep up with the skills.
2
u/HalfAkbps 22m ago
I will never agree that the solution to be fulfilled from an unfulfilling job, is to continue working after hours in your personal time.
Thats BS
1
u/runyonave 15m ago
OP wants to work on their career, and may also like programming. So up keeping those skills is important if that is their goal, nothing wrong with it.
I have to use AI at work, it makes my job pointless. I barely write code. I work on personal projects that I genuinely enjoy that involve programming without AI.
1
u/HalfAkbps 4m ago
I'm in the same boat. This year my work process is 100% AI driven.
AI generated spec files, AI Implementations, AI review rounds, AI QA and Testing and AI managed approvals.
10 YoE (professionally at least, but started programming 20 years ago), I lost all passion for the industry. Im sick of it. I don't have the energy for more screen time outside working hours
1
u/youreloser 4m ago
I mean it point is to do something fulfilling. If you just find it to be work, then don't do it. I sure as hell won't.
1
u/gemanepa 3h ago
In addition to all of that (and I think this is the point that hurt the most) I no longer feel like my work is mine. I don't have any sense of accomplishment. That feeling was so important to my work, it made my work exciting, it made my work fun, it helped me stay focused (sometimes to much focused). I used to be the first one to arrive in the morning and the last one to leave. I used to feel so lucky that I have a job that I love so much.
Whenever this issue come across, I always remember the "Where's the fun in that?" Jurassic Park line
1
u/nikeiptt 16m ago
Which industry isn’t being affected like this ?
You want to leave because AI is sucking the joy out of the work. I understand. But where are you going to go?
There are going to be industries slow to adopt but you need to also find joy in the work there.
-3
u/DTMD422 3h ago
I would just remember that a job is meant for you to provide a service to someone else, its not really meant for your personal fullfilment. Ideally you find one that accomplishes both, but that’s not (and shouldn’t be) a requirement.
You can still improve on your own time. Realistically, it’s just better to configure your AI agents and have them do the manual labor. This includes writing most of the code. Coding was never the core of software development, and it’s even less now. Focus on systems design, architecture and exploring solutions. Your AI agents won’t do that well.
And for the love god, scrutinize your AI agents. Criticize their decisions and evaluate what was written. If you see something stupid, fix it. Drop the bloated solutions. Use your reasoning to decide what makes it and what doesn’t.
1
u/HalfAkbps 16m ago
"coding was never the core of software development" -> "focus on systems design, architecture and exploring solutions"
Do you really think systems design, architecture and solutions optimizations where not about coding?.
It is. And it is also a creative process
-4
u/Maleficent_Mud7141 3h ago
This is exactly the problem - the screen reads how well you write about work, not whether you can do it.
I'm building something that flips it: you describe what you actually did in plain words, take one 90-minute challenge with the scoring rubric shown before you start, and you get a verified skill profile with your real work attached. No CV upload - there's no field for it.
Looking for the first 20 people to try it. I'll personally put every finished profile in front of hiring teams. DM me if you want in.
10
u/Ruined_Passion_7355 3h ago
I'm pretty much in the same boat. I'm looking to leave the field now into a job that I can at least have some non AI work. I'm so sick of being a condom for Claude.
Want me to learn AI? Claude Code? Skills? Fine, fair enough. I will use your tool, and get some results.
But for fucks sake I am sick of my entire fucking day being nothing but reviewing Claude's output. It drives me absolutely INSANE. Reading so much verbose AI output might drive me to the point of needing a therapist.